November 29|1
Sermon – Bethlehem Lutheran, Kalispell MT
Mark Gravrock
29 November 2015
Advent 1
Luke 21.25-36, Psalm 25.1-10
Grace and peace . . . .
For years I had heard the story of Denmark during WW2 –
how when the Nazis forced Danish Jews to wear the yellow Jewish star,
King Christian himself wore the Jewish star in public,
and vast numbers of Danish Christians did the same.
Sadly – it’s not quite true. I thought I’d better check it out.
The Nazis did not force Danish Jews to wear the star.
It was almost true:
Here’s what King Christian wrote in his diary at the time:
When you look at the inhumane treatment of Jews
[in Germany and elsewhere]. . .
you start worrying that such a demand might also be put on us,
but we must clearly refuse such,
due to their protection under the Danish constitution.
I stated that I could not meet such a demand towards Danish citizens.
If such a demand is made,
we would best meet it by all wearing the Star of David.
What is true is what happened in Billings, Montana, in 1995:
In the face of hate-threats toward local Jews,
the citizens of Billings – many of them Christians –
conducted the first “Not in Our Town” campaign:
They all put Jewish menorahs in their own windows,
as if to say, We are all Jews.
We are all in this together.
So here’s what I find myself wondering these days,
as fear ramps up
and hatred toward Muslims grows in our country:
Will it soon be time for followers of Jesus
to adopt and wear some sort of Muslim insignia in public?
November 29|2
Will it soon be time for Bethlehem to put on our reader board on Main St,
We are all Muslims.
We are all in this together.?
By now I think you all know me.
You know that I don’t push any particular political agenda,
and I’m not going to start now.
I am not smart enough to pretend to know
what course of action would be best for America
as we face the mess of involvement with Syria and ISIS
and Russia and Turkey.
I know that America must act:
I don’t know how.
But I am called – as pastor and as a Christian –
to pay attention to the rise of hate and fear
and to lay it alongside the word of our Savior.
Today’s scripture texts, for the First Sunday of Advent –
from the gospel of Luke and from the Psalm –
today’s texts speak the word that I need.
The Gospel, Luke 21:
This is now the third Sunday in a row
when our gospel reading has invoked the Second Coming
and the end of the world –
today even more so than the last two.
And today, just like the last two Sundays,
I get the sense that Jesus is paying far more attention
to what’s happening right now in his people’s lives
than he is about the end of time.
Jesus pulls a fast one on the people of his day.
He plays with their expectations:
Lots of folks in Jesus’ day were expecting
that God would soon bring an end to this broken, violent world,
and give birth to a brand new one.
Jesus shares those expectations, only –
he brings the End right smack in the middle of things!
November 29|3
And it all happens,
not with a grand show of force on God’s part,
but backwards, upside-down, at the cross.
Jesus picks up on Daniel’s vision of One like a Son of Man,
a Humane kingdom after all the beast kingdoms,
coming on the clouds of heaven.
[That was one of our readings last week.]
Jesus picks up on that Son of Man talk, and says,
It’s all happening here, right now,
within your lifetime,
right before your very eyes.
He does it at his trial before the Sanhedrin:
The High Priest puts Jesus under oath, and demands,
Tell us whether you are the Messiah!
And Jesus answers,
I am!
And . . . you yourselves will see the Son of Man
coming with the clouds of heaven.1
That’s what Jesus says,
but what they actually see – with their own eyes –
is Jesus hanging on a cross.
The apocalyptic, end-times tradition in Scripture
includes all sorts of cosmic disturbances:
the sun’s light fading,
the moon turning to blood,
the stars falling from the sky.2
Jesus picks up on that language, too:
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,
and on the earth distress among nations
confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.3
And, sure enough, while Jesus is dying on the cross,
the sun’s light does fail!4
1
2
3
Mark 14.62
For example, Joel 2.30-31.
Luke 21.25
November 29|4
More to the point, the powers on earth are shaken,
and people faint with foreboding
of what is coming upon the world.5
Sound just a little like today?
Sound just a little like the tone we hear in the news
every day lately?
At the end of Jesus’ words for today, Jesus warns us –
warns his disciples –
not only about what they will face at the end of time,
but also about what they might face in the middle of time:
Be on guard – he says -Be on guard
so that your hearts are not weighed down
with dissipation and drunkenness
and the worries of this life,6
that is – watch out:
It’s so easy, when fear and anxiety grips the world –
It’s so easy
either to blot it out by plunging into our own pleasures
or to be overwhelmed with angst and worry.
Instead,
Be alert at all times,
praying that you may have the strength to escape these things,
and to stand before the Son of Man.7
That last phrase – to stand before the Son of Man –
what’s that all about?
Is Jesus talking about the final wrap-up,
when the final judgment comes,
and we see Jesus face-to-face? – Yes.
Is he also talking about right now?
Right now as our world is held captive
4
5
Mark 15.33
V. 26
V. 34
7
V. 36
6
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in the grip of fear and terror?
What does it mean right now,
in the face of fear and hate -What does it mean right now
to stand before the Son of Man,
to stand with the Son of Man?
Let’s shift to today’s psalm – Psalm 25 (p. 6).
Ps 25 has been one of my personal favorites for most of my life.
It’s a good one!
Most of my life, however,
I’ve prayed Ps 25 in terms of my personal faith,
my individual walk with Christ.
That is how it’s written, after all:
It’s “I,” “me,” and “my” all over the psalm.
This week, as I thought about the crises our world faces,
I read Psalm 25 corporately.
I read it as “we” and “us”
and the whole psalm spoke to what we’re facing.
The psalm gave almost a blueprint for where to stand.
Give it a try:
Verse 1 and 2a:
To you, O LORD, we lift up our soul.
O God, we put our trust in you.
In our anxiety and fear we feel helpless,
and we know that our only real help is in our God.
We lift up our souls to God.
Think of that, when we get to the Lord’s Supper this morning,
when, in the midst of all our fears and struggles,
we hear, Lift up your hearts.
And we answer, We lift them up to the Lord.
To you, O LORD, we lift up our soul.
Verses 2b and 3:
Do not let us be put to shame;
November 29|6
do not let our enemies triumph over us.
Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
We may not use shame-language much today.
Shame has to do with losing face,
with losing standing before the world.
We may put it other terms, but the gist is the same:
Lord, don’t let terrorists win over us.
Don’t let irrational terror take away our life!
Those who wait for you, Lord –
those who put their trust in you –
don’t fail them! Don’t fail us!
Those who are out to destroy us –
let them be stopped and shamed and beaten!
[Are you uncomfortable with praying that our enemies be destroyed?
Does it feel not very Christian?
And yet, the psalms are full of such prayers.
The thing is, that’s what we often feel, deep down inside:
Lord, smash them!
That vengeance is already there in our hearts.
What the psalm does is give us a vehicle for expressing it,
for getting the poison out of our guts.
What the psalm does is give it over into God’s hands,
for God to deal with it.
And as we pray our curses,
what we’re finally doing is praying them onto Jesus,
onto Jesus who carries all our poison on the cross.
Pray it! And give it over to God!]
Verses 4 and 5a:
Make us to know your ways, O LORD;
teach us your paths.
Lead us in your truth, and teach us,
Here’s where we confess to God,
We really don’t know what to do.
We don’t know where to go with our fears,
November 29|7
our anxieties, and our hatreds.
Here is where we acknowledge that,
if we respond to ISIS the way our guts want to respond,
we will end up playing the enemy’s game.
We will end up being what the enemy is.
God, we need you:
Teach us your ways, your paths, your truth.
The rest of verse 5:
for you are the God of our salvation;
for you we wait all day long.
Here we confess that God alone is our hope,
God alone our rescue,
God alone our help.
For God we wait:
To wait is to trust.
To wait is to let go of control.
To wait means, even as we act and live,
we leave it all in God’s hands.
“Waiting” is Advent talk.
Waiting is where we live.
Verses 6 and 7:
Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love,
for they are from everlasting –
that’s who you have always been for us!
Remember not the sins of our youth, or our rebellions.
Remember us according to your steadfast love,
for your goodness’ sake, O LORD!
Now it’s confession time.
Now we acknowledge that our part in the story
has not always been on the up-and-up.
Now is when we recognize that -even though nothing can justify the enemy’s horrible acts -we may bear some responsibility, too.
There have been wrongs on our side, too.
Dear God, do not hold us to account for our sins.
November 29|8
Remember your mercy, your steadfast love, your forgiveness!
Verses 8 and 9:
You are good and upright, O LORD;
therefore you teach sinners in your way.
You lead the humble in justice – in what is right,
and teach the humble your way.
Once we’ve seen and acknowledged our own wrongs,
our own role in the problem,
now we’re ready for our Savior to teach us.
And now we know that it’s precisely sinners who know it –
it’s precisely the humble, the humbled,
who are ready to be taught –
and our God promises to teach the humble.
I’m listening for the voices of the humble in our land
to lead us in how to respond in an age of terror.
Finally, verse 10:
We’ve been begging God to teach us and lead us.
V. 10 finally names God’s paths, God’s ways:
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
God’s ways – the ways of Jesus Christ –
God’s ways are steadfast love and faithfulness.
God’s ways toward us are ways of committed, faithful love.
God’s ways toward the world are ways of committed, faithful love.
And the ways that our Savior wants to teach us
are ways of faithfulness toward God
and paths of committed love for the world.
Those are the ways I’m listening for
in our public discourse over fear and terror –
the paths that embody God’s faithful compassion
for everyone in the picture –
the paths of justice,
the ways that heal.
November 29|9
Jesus says,
Pray that you may have strength to stand before the Son of Man.
Pray that you may have strength to stand with the Son of Man.
The story that’s told of Denmark under Nazi rule
is that King Christian himself wore the Jewish star in public,
and vast numbers of Danish Christians did the same.
Not quite true, since Danish Jews were never forced to wear the yellow star,
but it was in the king’s mind and in his plans
to join the Jews in their identity and shame.
The people of Billings did put Jewish menorahs in their windows
during a time of hate-threat,
as if to say, We are all Jews.
We are all in this together.
I find myself wondering these days,
as fear ramps up
and hatred toward Muslims grows in our country:
Will it soon be time for followers of Jesus
to adopt and wear some sort of Muslim insignia in public?
Will it soon be time for Bethlehem to put on our reader board on Main St,
We are all Muslims.
We are all in this together.?
Jesus warns us,
When fear and hatred grip your world,
when destruction draws near,
don’t get sucked in –
either by being overcome with terror
or by blotting in out with distraction and pleasure.
When these things begin to take place,
stand up – lift up your heads:
Your redemption is drawing near.
Your redemption is drawing near.8
8
Luke 21.28
N o v e m b e r 2 9 | 10
Pray that you may have strength to stand with the Son of Man.
Show us your ways, O Lord.
Teach us your paths.
Amen.